7 Quotes Tagged: assassination

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1. Bangladesh.... In 1971 ... Kissinger overrode all advice in order to support the Pakistani generals in both their civilian massacre policy in East Bengal and their armed attack on India from West Pakistan.... This led to a moral and political catastrophe the effects of which are still sorely felt. Kissinger’s undisclosed reason for the ‘tilt’ was the supposed but never materialised ‘brokerage’ offered by the dictator Yahya Khan in the course of secret diplomacy between Nixon and China.... Of the new state of Bangladesh, Kissinger remarked coldly that it was ‘a basket case’ before turning his unsolicited expertise elsewhere.

2. Chile.... Kissinger had direct personal knowledge of the CIA’s plan to kidnap and murder General René Schneider, the head of the Chilean Armed Forces ... who refused to countenance military intervention in politics. In his hatred for the Allende Government, Kissinger even outdid Richard Helms ... who warned him that a coup in such a stable democracy would be hard to procure. The murder of Schneider nonetheless went ahead, at Kissinger’s urging and with American financing, just between Allende’s election and his confirmation.... This was one of the relatively few times that Mr Kissinger (his success in getting people to call him ‘Doctor’ is greater than that of most PhDs) involved himself in the assassination of a single named individual rather than the slaughter of anonymous thousands. His jocular remark on this occasion — ‘I don’t see why we have to let a country go Marxist just because its people are irresponsible’ — suggests he may have been having the best of times....

3. Cyprus.... Kissinger approved of the preparations by Greek Cypriot fascists for the murder of President Makarios, and sanctioned the coup which tried to extend the rule of the Athens junta (a favoured client of his) to the island. When despite great waste of life this coup failed in its objective, which was also Kissinger’s, of enforced partition, Kissinger promiscuo
Christopher Hitchens, English American author and journalist (1949–2011)
pakistan slaughter doctors foreign-policy iraq civil-war 1971 1971-bangladesh-atrocities 1972-nixon-visit-to-china 1973-chilean-coup-d-etat bangladesh bangladesh-liberation-war central-intelligence-agency chile china-pakistan-relations coup-d-état doctors-of-philosophy east-timor ecclesiastical-coup foreign-policy-of-the-us greek-cypriots indo-pakistani-war-of-1971 indonesia indonesian-national-armed-forces iran-iraq-war iran iraqi-kurdistan israeli-lebanese-conflict jakarta diplomacy junta kurdish-iraqi-conflict kurdistan lebanon military-of-chile mohammad-reza-pahlavi monroe-leigh news-leaks pakistan-united-states-relations portugual portuguese-empire refugees rene-schneider richard-nixon salvador-allende schneider-doctrine second-kurdish-iraqi-war shah sino-american-relations thomas-d-boyatt walter-isaacson yahya-khan india missionaries turkey united-states morality kurdish-people war democracy henry-kissinger war-crimes politics 1975 1974 cyprus marxism turkish-invasion-of-cyprus israel china makarios-iii greece murder partition assassination saddam-hussein international-law athens fascism
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Remaining for a moment with the question of legality and illegality: United Nations Security Council Resolution 1368, unanimously passed, explicitly recognized the right of the United States to self-defense and further called upon all member states 'to bring to justice the perpetrators, organizers and sponsors of the terrorist attacks. It added that 'those responsible for aiding, supporting or harboring the perpetrators, organizers and sponsors of those acts will be held accountable.' In a speech the following month, the United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan publicly acknowledged the right of self-defense as a legitimate basis for military action. The SEAL unit dispatched by President Obama to Abbottabad was large enough to allow for the contingency of bin-Laden's capture and detention. The naïve statement that he was 'unarmed' when shot is only loosely compatible with the fact that he was housed in a military garrison town, had a loaded automatic weapon in the room with him, could well have been wearing a suicide vest, had stated repeatedly that he would never be taken alive, was the commander of one of the most violent organizations in history, and had declared himself at war with the United States. It perhaps says something that not even the most casuistic apologist for al-Qaeda has ever even attempted to justify any of its 'operations' in terms that could be covered by any known law, with the possible exception of some sanguinary verses of the Koran.
Christopher Hitchens, English American author and journalist (1949–2011)
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osama-bin-laden pakistan right-to-self-defense united-nations united-nations-security-council united-states-navy-seals assassination law september-11-attacks international-law united-states self-defense barack-obama justice war quran islamism abbottabad al-qaeda death-of-osama-bin-laden kofi-annan
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"Here's an interesting form of murder we came up with: assassination. You know what's interesting about assassination? Well, not only does it change those popularity polls in a big fucking hurry, but it's also interesting to notice who it is we assassinate. Did you ever notice who it is? Stop to think who it is we kill? It's always people who've told us to live together in harmony and try to love one another. Jesus, Gandhi, Lincoln, John Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, John Lennon, they all said, "Try to live together peacefully." BAM! Right in the fucking head. Apparently we're not ready for that."
George Carlin, American stand-up comedian (1937–2008)
assassination humanity
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